


Rise and Fall

by thedevilchicken



Category: Twelve O'Clock High (1949)
Genre: Hopeful Ending, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-21
Updated: 2018-06-21
Packaged: 2019-05-26 11:57:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15000392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedevilchicken/pseuds/thedevilchicken
Summary: Frank hadn't touched him like that in fifteen years.





	Rise and Fall

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Muccamukk](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Muccamukk/gifts).



Frank hadn't touched him like that in fifteen years. 

It started off innocently enough: Frank had stretched out on his bed and gone straight off to sleep and Keith couldn't say he blamed him for that, not really, not deep down or when he gave any serious thought to it, considering the kind of day Frank had had. So, he'd pulled off Frank's boots - _his_ boots, he guessed, though he'd made a pretty petty point of leaving them behind, and he'd maybe regretted doing that once he'd got where he was going. He'd drawn the blinds then sat himself down in Frank's worn old chair, the one that had been _his_ chair up till not so long ago, so it still felt kinda like the leather remembered the shapes of both of them together, like they were one and the same. Then, he let Frank sleep. 

He'd started drifting off himself as he sat there, trying to get some warmth back into his hands, listening to rumble of the B-17s coming in to land. He missed being up there, with the boys, at the stick, straining to hear over the rattle of the fuselage, and the engines, and the guns. Bomber Command under Pritchard out at Pinetree felt like a cakewalk by comparison and he'd maybe resented Frank for getting him yanked out from his group command like that, at least back in the start. But, looking across the room at him lying there, resentment seemed to Keith to be pretty far away. Looking at him lying there, Keith smiled a little, to himself. Sometimes he wished they were more alike. Sometimes he wished they were less. 

He would've sat there all day and watched over him, if he'd slept the night before, but the fact was that he hadn't much. So it came to him, as his eyelids drooped: he shrugged off his jacket and he pulled off his boots, he turned back the blanket and and he stretched out in the bed, on his back right there next to Frank. They'd bunked together a few times, years before, when mattresses had been in pretty short supply, so he figured Frank wouldn't mind too much that he yawned and stretched and fell asleep with his shoulder pressed up tight to his. He'd fallen asleep in that damn chair just often enough while he'd still had command at Archbury to know it wasn't worth the crick in his neck to avoid the bed just because Frank Savage was lying in it.

It started off innocently enough: the space beside Frank was just a convenient place to take a nap that wouldn't feel a lot like a 20mm shell straight to the spine, but then Keith woke up and it no longer felt even half so innocent as it had started out. Frank had turned up onto one side and Keith had somehow wound up exactly like that, too. Frank's chest was pressed up so tight against Keith's back that he could feel the movement in it when Frank breathed. He had one arm slung around Keith's waist, his hand tucked up just underneath he hem of his untucked shirt. His fingers were curled against Keith's belly but then he felt them move; Frank grumbled under his breath and flattened his palm to the bare skin just above the buckle of Keith's belt. 

"You're still here," Frank said. His voice was low and rough, half asleep and halfway to surprised, tickling the hairs at the back of Keith's neck. He shivered, and he took a handful of blanket to shore himself up against the unexpected feel of it. This wasn't exactly what he'd intended. 

"I figured you could use the company," Keith replied, trying to sound jovial about it, but that trailed into a wry kind of chuckle, and a wry kind of smile. "I guess I figured I could, too." He paused. He could feel Frank's fingertips rubbing faintly at his skin, small circles, making his chest feel tight and his face feel warm. God knew he'd wanted that, for years, for _years_. He'd wanted a whole lot more than that, if truth be told, though he'd tried not to imagine it. "If you move your arm, Frank, I'll give you back the bed and go track us down some chow." 

Frank murmured something completely incomprehensible by the collar of Keith's shirt, with his nose nudging at his neck. Then, all at once, in a sudden rush, he seemed to realize who and when and where he was; he went still and he went stiff, and he took a slow breath in. 

"Keith?" he said. 

"Well, sure," Keith replied. "Were you expecting someone else?" 

"No, I can't say I was," Frank admitted. "I guess I don't wake up in bed with too many other colonels, Colonel Davenport." 

He took another slow breath and then he sighed it out slowly as he rested his forehead down against the crown of Keith's head. He paused there, ten seconds, thirty, not moving away though Keith had expected he would. He'd thought Frank would make a bigger joke of it than he'd managed to, that he'd laugh and they'd sit up and maybe he'd finally change out of the flight suit he'd been sleeping in and pull his uniform back on, and maybe a little normalcy along with it. Maybe they'd head out and get a beer together and share a cigarette, or maybe Keith would go find Doc Kaiser and have him give Frank another look-over. But Frank stayed right where he was. His fingertips skimmed the waistband of Keith's uniform pants and settled an inch or two underneath it.

"What was your rank the last time, Keith?" Frank asked. 

Frank's hand pressed a little tighter against Keith's waist. Keith didn't move a muscle. He knew exactly what Frank meant. He could picture it. After all that time, it was still right there, revisited so often as it was.

"Second lieutenant," Keith replied, thickly. "We were both lieutenants, as far as I recall." 

"Then I guess it was a long time ago."

"It's been fifteen years, more or less."

Frank slid his hand up higher underneath Keith's shirt, till his palm was at his collarbone and his forearm weighty against his chest, making the buttons strain over the top of it. Keith closed his eyes, not sure he dare lean back against him any more than he already was, even if he wanted to. He wanted to.

"That long?" Frank asked. 

"That long," Keith confirmed. 

"Do you ever think about it?"

"About what, Frank?" 

Frank shifted behind him. He pulled his hand back out of Keith's shirt and Keith could feel him turning over, down onto his back. He heard him sigh. He heard the faint rasp of day-old stubble against skin and guessed Frank was scrubbing his face with one hand, or both; he shifted onto his back then to his other side, propping his head up on one hand to find he was right about that. Frank rubbed his face with both hands, then he looked at him. 

"About what, Frank?" Keith asked again, finding Frank didn't look a whole lot like a brigadier general as he lay there, not right then. 

"About you and me," Frank replied, carefully, with his eyes trained on him, serious and dark. "How we used to pal around some, back in the old days."

Keith gave a sudden, surprised chuff of laughter at that. "Sure," he said, brows raised, thinking that wasn't exactly what he'd've called it in Frank's place, not that he really had the words himself. "I think about it. Now and then"

"Do you miss it?"

"We're still pals now," Keith said, lightly, and impassive. "Or did you mean something else?"

Frank winced and looked away, but that was just for a moment before he turned again, up onto his side. He raised his free hand, the one he wasn't resting his head against; he set it down at Keith's hip for a second then he lifted it higher, hesitantly, right up to his cheek. His thumb rubbed Keith's at cheekbone. He clenched and unclenched his jaw.

"I meant something else," Frank said, then he slipped his hand to the back of Keith's neck. He shuffled closer, awkwardly, all knees and the creak of the worn out Army bedsprings. He rested his forehead down against Keith's and he closed his eyes and he breathed. He moved. He brushed his mouth against Keith's, almost like he didn't even mean it. 

"I meant this," he said. 

Keith figured that made more sense of the matter than any kind of words might have, but the thing was, he knew Frank had never kissed him. They'd done plenty, sure: they'd been stationed together through flight school, shared a room, been in each other's space, gotten on each other's nerves, till all that pent-up close-quarters stress had turned to camaraderie, then something else. They'd had too much to drink some nights while out on liberty and wound up sprawled in the same bunk, pants shoved down almost halfway to their knees, and Frank had laughed it off at the time and that was all well and good except Keith had never managed to. All those nights with their hands on each other, pretending lending a hand was just what good buddies did, he'd never gotten past it. 

"You know, Frank," Keith said, "I don't think we ever did this before for me to know to miss it."

Frank traced the curve of Keith's bottom lip with the pad of his thumb. 

"We didn't?" he asked. 

"No. I think I'd remember."

"We should have." Frank raised his brows. "Should I stop?" 

Keith chuckled. "I don't want you to stop any more than I wanted you to stop fifteen years ago," he said. 

Frank smiled faintly. After a moment, Frank kissed him again. 

Maybe, Keith thought, Frank hadn't gotten past it either; but maybe, he thought, Frank was just so damn pleased to be alive. Frank hadn't touched him like that in fifteen years, Keith thought, or maybe he'd never touched him like that at all. Maybe this was the first time.

And maybe he should've stopped him, maybe he should've made sure he was even in his right mind because he knew they'd both been broken down by the other kinds of things that they'd both done. But, as Frank started to undress him, his hands unsteady but his expression sure, it felt a whole lot more like a promise for the future than a ghost out of the past. 

Frank Savage was the best man he knew. So he figured he'd show him that, or go out trying.


End file.
